Paid on-call switch paying off for MDTRFS

Times Photo by Trevor Busch. FIRE PREVENTION: Nathan Coté, MDTRFS regional fire chief and director of emergency management, poses with one the MD’s fire vehicles in the Taber Station. MDTRFS is hosting an open house tonight at the Barnwell Station from 5:30 - 8 p.m.

By Trevor Busch
Taber Times
editor@tabertimes.com

T

hroughout the year, Municipal District of Taber Regional Fire Services (MDTRFS) take on a challenging and diverse number of situations that test the capacity of the service to meet the needs of citizens and non-citizens alike.

“Just about every year, our biggest call volumes each year are going to be grass and field fires. One on our high end as well is motor vehicle collisions. Those are not good days for others, but we respond to quite a few of those for sure,” said Nathan Coté, MDTRFS regional fire chief and director of emergency management. “I think we had a couple decent grass fires up in the Hays area that were fairly significant in size. We had several car accidents, quite a few multi-vehicle incidents as well.”

Beyond a core of about 90 volunteer firefighters, the MDTRFS is supported by six district chiefs, a deputy regional fire chief, and a regional fire chief. The MDTRFS is made up of six separate stations including Hays, Grassy Lake, Enchant, Taber, Vauxhall and Barnwell.

“So we go to just about anything. We’re a fire and rescue department so we respond to all different kinds of fires, as well as rescues and things like that as well,” said Coté. “Like I said before, our main call volume in reality is going to be grass and field fires as well as our car accidents that we respond to, but we respond to anything from livestock emergencies out on our highways to rescue calls at facilities to structure fires within homes or businesses, we kind of respond to all of it, alarms ringing, carbon monoxide calls, all those different types of calls we train and work towards.” 

Moving to a paid on-call service has been a welcome change that seems to be working well for the department, reports Coté.

“In the last year, we’ve switched to a paid on-call style fire department, where our members now get paid a wage to attend trainings, attend call outs and things like that. Whereas prior to that, we were a little bit more of an honorarium base, or we paid it out once a year. Now they get paid a little bit of what they put in, so to speak, so it’s fair to everybody, and you know our members aren’t giving up time when they leave work to go to a call. We want to make sure that they’re looked after, and it’s worthwhile for them to leave their job if they’re able to to attend those calls. We want to make sure it’s not hurting them in the pocketbook. I think it’s good to be honest with you, it’s been right around a year – it’s worked. It seems like our recruitment has gone up slightly. I don’t know if that’s 100 per cent just because of that, but it seems like we’re bringing new members in when needed, as well as it feels like we’re holding on to our members, so the retention portion as well. You know, ask any one of our members, it’s not why we do this. Those folks, they don’t come in here to make money. That’s not what it’s all about to them. To them, it’s all about helping people and giving back to our communities. But we look at it and think if we can help them while they’re helping people, by making sure that they’re not going without by losing out on hours at work and things like that, we feel as though we’re helping them. So we think it’s a win-win, if it helps us to bring in people or keep people here, that’s all that much better for all of us.”

Recruitment has been beyond Coté’s expectations in 2025 and he couldn’t be happier with the response the MDTRFS has been seeing. 

“This year we had a really good year. In the volunteer fire service anywhere in the world, really, you don’t hear too many people saying how successful recruitment has been. But this year – although don’t get me wrong, we could always use more members, and we’ll always be recruiting and continue to recruit – we were fairly successful this year in bringing folks in, we participated in the Community Adult Learning job fairs this year, and especially in the springtime, we were able to bring half a dozen new members into our station – the Taber station – and our other stations seem to be doing fairly well as well, each of which have brought new members in throughout the 2025 year. So overall we’re pretty happy, and we hope that trend continues as we go.”

“We’re always recruiting. So the best way if you are interested, or if someone was interested in joining would be to go to our MD website. There’s an online application process where you would fill out a quick application on there, send us an email, and we can get ahold of the folks and get them signed up,” said Coté.

One highlight for Fire Prevention Week is tonight’s Open House at the MDTRFS station in Barnwell which goes from 5:30 – 8 p.m.

“We have an open house up and coming at our Barnwell station. We’ll be looking for new firefighters. Our Barnwell station is quite low on firefighters, so we’re definitely recruiting there. We’ll have a few different activities for the folks that attend. We’ll do some normal stuff like tours and kind of show off the station and our equipment, but we’re hoping to do a few fun activities with the kids as well. So hopefully we’ll see some folks there, and we look forward to it.”

There weren’t any major life cycle replacements or additions of equipment in 2025, but there will be one coming in 2026.

“So we didn’t have any major apparatus being replaced in 2025. In 2026 we’re going to see one of our command trucks being replaced,”said Coté. “We’ll start the planning on an upcoming engine in our Vauxhall station that’ll be replaced in a couple years, I think in 2027, so we’ll be going through the planning for that through 2026. This year, we did purchase a little bit of equipment for our heavy rescue – so two years ago we purchased a heavy rescue truck for the Taber station, and what we want to use, or continue to use, that truck for is response to not just regular motor vehicle collisions, but anything involving heavy equipment – we have the large agricultural base, or just the heavy trucks that drive up and down our highways. So it’s equipped with a little bit more equipment, a little heavier use type equipment on that truck. And so this year, we purchased a lifting bag that can lift heavier stuff, heavier trucks, heavier equipment. That’s going to work well with some of the big equipment and trucks that are out there. So we’ve been working towards that goal over the last few years of having that heavy rescue truck set up. Obviously we’re well aware this equipment is really expensive. The truck is expensive as well, and so we’re trying to have a regional system, have one in place that can work throughout our entire regional service. It’s been a project, and we continue to build on that project, and hopefully it works out well for us.”

MDTRFS keeps an engine in reserve for training and back-up purposes.

“What we try to do is keep one decent engine in our fleet as our spare truck. It may be past its service life of 25 years, but it’s still a decent truck, and we can use it as a spare truck if we had a breakdown or something needs to go into the shop for a couple days for regular maintenance – we can put something in place. Furthermore, we use that as our training truck. So when we go out to the Fire Training Center – whether here in Taber, or we use our facility up in Vauxhall – we have a truck that we’re not pulling something out of frontline use. So we keep it for that. Further to that, if it’s past its service life and it’s no longer needed as part of our fleet and going to be replaced, yes, we would sell it off. I would call it a private sale, in a way. But in reality, nothing is direct to a person. It’s always going to be done through some form of an auction, so sort of a public sale in that form,” said Coté.

Volunteers with MDTRFS are always willing to pitch in a helping hand for community fundraisers and events.

“We like to get involved with our communities as well. And so we’ve gone and participated with the Taber and District Health Foundation with things like Smile Cookie days over at Tim Hortons. We’ve also been involved with the Blizzard Day over at Dairy Queen, as well as McHappy day, a few different things like that. So as many events that do happen, we love to participate in those and help out where we can. Again, we have a group of folks that want nothing more than to help out and give back to their communities. And so participating in some of those events, we’re more than happy to and if folks have an event up and coming they would like some help with we’d be certainly glad to help out,” said Coté.

School visits and outreach are still an important aspect of annual operations.

“We absolutely do, if or when the schools ask for us to come and do fire safety presentations for the kids,” said Coté. “So we’ve gone out in most of our different schools, from Grassy Lake, Hays, Enchant, even in Barnwell. So anytime that they would like us, we were happy to go and attend. And we also take kids in for fire hall tours as well.”

MDTRFS volunteers were also part of wildfire response in Northern Alberta in 2025. 

“We sent our folks this year way up north, for wildfires this spring. We were up in a community there, and then drove out each day on to one of the reserves up there to help out with some of the wildland urban interface stuff. So we had folks gone for three weeks. We had a truck and different crews throughout that three week period that were up there, serving and helping out with the big wildfires that were happening this spring,” said Coté.

One key initiative that is growing in popularity amongst both staff and the public will be returning again this Christmas.

“This winter, we’ll do our Candy Cane Food Drive again,” said Coté. “It’s usually in the start of December that we get together and decorate up our trucks and go through all of the communities in the same night, and we go around handing out candy canes, wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and if folks are willing, we’ll take non perishables for the food bank. And so it’s been very, very successful. Our people in our communities are very generous, especially at Christmas time. But in general, they’re very generous. And it’s been certainly impressive over the last three or four years that we’ve been doing this how much food that we’ve been able to to bring into the two food banks in Vauxhall and Taber. So we’re pretty stoked. We get a really good turnout of our members walking around the communities that night, seems like somebody above seems to smile down on us – we’ve only had one really cold year. It’s been decent weather and stuff, and so it’s not so bad to go out and walk the communities and stuff. But yeah, it’s our members have a lot of fun with that event, and they sure enjoy doing it. So we’ll be out again in the start of December for that.”

Coté was careful to thank the volunteers who sacrifice their time to make sure the MD of Taber has an efficient and effective fire service.

“I just would offer my thanks to our members, to them and their families for everything that they do. Without the graciousness of all of our volunteers and the great work that they do, this wouldn’t be possible, right? So a huge thank you out to our volunteers and their families for allowing them to volunteer. We certainly appreciate them and look forward to more success in the future.”